More Irish people chose to travel within Ireland and less people made trips abroad in 2011 according the latest Central Statistics Office figures.
In the Household Travel Survey 2011, it shows residents took almost 9 million domestic trips that year.
This has gone up from 8.3 million trips in 2008, steadily increasing year on year.
Over 6.6 million trips abroad were undertaken by Irish residents in 2011. The number of trips outside the country has been decreasing since 2008 with over 8 million trips taken that year.
For those who stayed in the country, each trip had an average duration of three nights, resulting in a total of 26.9 million bed nights.
Less than half of all domestic trips were classified as holidays, while over 3 million trips were to visit friends or relatives.
Visitors who stayed in hotel accommodation accounted for 3.4 million domestic trips in 2011, a decrease of 5.7% when compared with 2010. However in 2008, the same number of visitors stayed in hotel accommodation at just over 3.4 million trips.
Total expenditure on domestic trips in 2011 amounted to €1,822.2m.
More than €1 billion of this was accounted for by those on holidays, while those
visiting friends or relatives spent just over €397 million in 2011.
The vast majority of trips abroad were to countries in the European Union.
Within the European Union, the UK remains the most popular destination for travel in terms of number of trips.
